1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an inhaler for ejecting medicine as liquid droplets and causing the user to inhale it.
2. Description of the Related Art
There are various methods of administering medicine to a patient's body including oral administration, injection by needle, application to the exterior of the body, and the use of a patch, and various devices and systems have been developed for each of these methods. Additionally, many electric devices have been developed as medical equipment as a result of the advancement of science and technology in recent years to make it possible to realize what has been difficult to achieve by mechanical means.
Many varieties of electrical medical equipment are diagnostic devices, while devices for administering medicine also exist, one example being nebulizers. The nebulizer has a vibrator as source of atomization of medicine and electric power is required for it as power source.
By observing devices for administering medicine particularly from the viewpoint of repetitive administration of medicine and replacement, it will be found that a nebulizer is so designed that a package of medicine that is independent of the nebulizer is moved into the device and subsequently atomized so that the user may inhale the medicine as he or she breathes. A package of medicine needs to be provided for each use of the nebulizer. The vibrator that is the source of atomization of medicine is operated repetitively and needs to be periodically cleaned to keep it in a sanitary condition. In other words, a nebulizer is not a particularly convenient system from the user's viewpoint.
On the other hand, such problems have already been solved in some other technical fields. For instance, a simple arrangement is provided for ink-jet printers so as to simplify the replacement operation. More specifically, a cartridge structure formed by integrally combining an ejection head for ejecting ink for printing that requires electric power, an electric connection section for supplying electric power and a container for storing ink is provided for use with an ink-jet printer. While the printer main body normally has a long service life, the ink supply needs to be replenished frequently. If an ejection head is incorporated into the main body from the beginning and develops a problem, it is a cumbersome, costly and time-consuming operation to repair the ejection head. If, on the other hand, an ejection head is provided as a replaceable part, the problem can be solved with ease.
When such an integrated cartridge is adopted, it needs to satisfy the requirements that the operation of removably putting the cartridge in position relative to printer main body should be easy and visually recognizable and the parts thereof that are directly related to the operation should be very strong, durable and dimensionally precise. For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. H07-276616 and H09-141874 disclose techniques developed from this viewpoint.
More specifically, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H07-276616 relates to an arrangement of securing an integrated cartridge to a printer and subsequently rotating the cartridge so as to rigidly hold it in position in order to electrically energize it, while bringing electric connection terminals into contact with each other simultaneously.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. H09-141874 relates to a spacer having dimensions adapted to isolate the electric connection sections of an ejection head in order to reduce the number of parts to be replaced when the ejection head is replaced and make the electric connection sections contact each other appropriately so as to establish a stable electric connection.
As pointed out above, an integrated cartridge needs to meet all the requirements that the operation of removably putting the cartridge in position relative to printer main body should be easy and visible and the parts thereof that are directly related to the operation should be very strong, durable and dimensionally precise in order to satisfy the user.
However, the cartridge and the printer main body have a plurality of parts that need to be linked or brought into contact in order to meet a variety of functional requirements they have. If they have problems in terms of structure and/or construction for realizing such functions simultaneously including establishing a plurality of contacts, the fixed parts of the cartridge can be damaged and degraded while the electric connection terminals may be worn and degraded.
While the linking and contacting units can be isolated to avoid the above identified problem, the number of operations that the user needs to perform will then be increased, and one or more additional mechanisms and spaces are required to consequently make the main body more complex and larger. Furthermore, the functions of a system that requires a cartridge to be replaced frequently should be reliable, reproducible and visually recognizable to the user.